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In a commentary to be published in the forthcoming issue of the WCC journal, The Ecumenical Review, Bedford-Strohm describes the document as being “imbued with a spirit of ecumenical listening, something that is crucial for further progress on the path to the unity of the churches.”
Published in June 2024 and titled The Bishop of Rome, the document summarizes the responses to the way in which Pope John Paul II discussed the papacy in the 1995 encyclical, Ut unum sint “On commitment to ecumenism,” whose title refers to Jesus’ prayer that his disciples “may be one.”
In the encyclical, Pope John Paul II recognized that for Christians of other church traditions the history of the papacy included “painful recollections” and suggested “a patient and fraternal dialogue” to find a way of exercising the papal office, “open to a new situation.”
Published with the approval of Pope Francis, the new study document summarizes the responses to the encyclical and identifies the most significant suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity of the Bishop of Rome, “recognized by one and all.”
In his commentary, Bedford-Strohm praises the “serious attempt in the study document to respond in a spirit of love to the various testimonies of ecumenical dialogues that have dealt with the papal office.”
He notes how the study document makes explicit reference to a joint preparation and commemoration of the 1700th anniversary in 2025 of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea as an opportunity for Christians of all traditions to share together in the practise of synodality.
“Living out our fellowship together as a visible dimension of the ‘ecumenism of the heart’ on which the WCC ’s 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe focused in 2022 will move us forward ecumenically,” he writes.
“This sense of fellowship, community, and communion is not primarily dependent on individuals, but on the extent to which they are rooted in Christ and his love,” Bedford-Strohm writes. “This love is stronger than human beings’ clinging to their divisions. For me, this is the deepest reason for having hope for the unity of the Church.”
The commentary appearing in The Ecumenical Review is an English-language version of a longer commentary that first appeared in Herder Korrespondenz in Germany.
